EDITORIAL | Motivating change

Friday, May 16, 2014 2:40 PM

Mayor Ed Murray is coming up with his own regional funding plan to save local bus service without alienating other bus riders countywide. This would likely include shifting money in the city’s transportation budget for the short term, among other alternatives, he told The Seattle Times.

After county voters failed to pass Proposition 1 in April, Seattle residents — the majority of whom voted for it — answered with Initiative 118 (“Keep Seattle Moving”), which would increase city property taxes $22 per $100,000 of property value to save local bus service.

Murray is on the money in stating that property taxes are “no longer an infinite resource,” especially with upcoming ballot measures that ask taxpayers to pay for preschools, a parks district, low-income housing and street repairs.

But lacking any other transit funding source, any idea that spurs legislators to get moving on a solution — especially from citizens, as with the $15 minimum-wage issue — is worth pondering.